This Is Why You Are INCONSISTENT - Failing Diet and Training (OptiCast 18)

🎓 ABOUT THIS VIDEO
This podcast delves into the powerful connection between identity, consistency, and long-term goal achievement, especially in the context of fitness. The hosts explore how defining big-picture goals helps shape your desired identity, while small, achievable milestones are crucial for managing ego and preventing self-sabotage, ultimately building a resilient journey towards that new identity. They emphasize that consistency is a learned skill, not a personality trait, and is cultivated through repeated small actions rather than solely through grand efforts.

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on common pitfalls that break consistency, such as identity mismatch, an all-or-nothing mentality, emotional decision-making, and an over-reliance on outcomes rather than process-driven standards. The hosts vigorously argue against the pitfalls of motivation, suggesting it's an unreliable and short-lived driver, unlike the unwavering nature of identity-based standards. They also tackle the concept of "restarting," advocating for treating setbacks as data points for adjustment and growth rather than as moral failings or opportunities for dramatic comebacks. The conversation highlights the value of external support, such as coaching, to objectively assess blind spots, provide accountability, and simplify the complex process of personal transformation, stressing that true, sustainable change is born from emotional neutrality around setbacks and a resilient, adaptable structure that works even on "bad" days.

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Identity Change, Consistency, Fitness Motivation, Goal Setting, Self-discipline, Habit Formation, Long-term Consistency, Personal Growth, Workout Motivation, Health and Fitness, Mindset, Productivity, Self-sabotage, Fitness Journey, Discipline vs Motivation, Behavior Change, Building Habits, Fitness Mindset

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

This podcast right here is just for engineering purposes. I am not a medical doctor, not a nutritionist, or personal trainer. I am barely fucking qualified by the dust. As Ruth Lane were so wisely said, I don't know shit about fuck. So don't trust me, don't listen to me. We're here just for shits and deals. If you trust me with health advice, and that's just natural selection at work. Don't do drugs, always listen to your GP, and with that disclaimer out of the way, let's get started. Welcome everyone to another episode of the Opticast with me, Nathan. And today we are in a new environment. We're in front of our computer where things actually work for us and we're able to actually talk to you in a little bit more calm way without having the dog present and the cat being the distraction, even though you guys love it so much. If you guys miss the dog and the cat, let us know, and we're gonna go back to the living room. But for now, this is where we are. Today we're actually talking about something that's very interesting and very close to heart to me, which is identity, discussing discipline and long-term consistency, basically who you become through training, why consistency actually breaks down, and how identity instead of motivation is what keeps you in the game long term. So, Aubrey, what is our first question from our clients? And thank you guys for sending the questions, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

How do you define fitness goals, big long-term goals, or smaller milestones?

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Okay, so four goals, your big goals are going to basically derive your identity from that. They're going to define your identity, not your behavior. Okay, people get confused and they think of their long-term goals like I want to lose 40 pounds, and they think that is their identity. It's not, it just defines your behavior. They these long-term goals they answer who you are becoming, not what you're doing this week. The small milestones, on the other hand, exist to keep your nervous system very calm and to keep your ego grounded so you don't self-sabotage. Every single time you start self-sabotaging yourself, it is because of your ego. Your long-term goals without short-term milestones is going to create a lot of overwhelming paralysis. So that's why we need to break down these long-ass phases into smaller, actionable items that we can do every single week. Now, these milestones, if we have these milestones, without long-term identity, we're gonna have boredom and drift. So this is this is like something that we do very differently for different types of clients. There are certain clients that I keep um entirely in the dark, so to speak, in terms of the like overall structure, because for them, it actually works best for them. Like they get in their own heads and they can't really get so much out of the process because they just keep thinking about all the minutiae and the stuff, you know. Um, now for other people, if they don't have this thing clearly on like everything that they're doing, man, they're not gonna be able to do it. They need to see the long-term goal, the short-term, the medium-term milestones to be able to pull this thing out. So you can think of the big goals as your compass and the milestones as your footsteps. So the big goals are your goals, like everything that people think in terms of goals. I want to lose 40 pounds, I want to add 10 pounds of muscle, but then the milestones are your KPIs or the actionable items that you do on a day-to-day basis. If a goal doesn't change how you see yourself, though, it won't survive stress. What does this mean? It means that your goal needs to actually attach to a new type of identity. You don't have to abandon who you are, but you have to allow yourself to grow. Does that does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yes, yeah, I I completely understand that. And I think that um the whole when stress gets in the way, you I mean, you have to have the identity shift piece. Um, I think that that's why in any area of life, you know, that's why relationships fail. I think that that's why, you know, people don't leave their jobs, like they just if you don't have the goal of okay, I'm gonna get a new job or I'm going to be committed to this person or whatever it is, when you're caught up in the day-to-day life of that stressful, I don't think that you're going to be able to uh follow through on anything. But if it's part of your identity, like, no, I am this person's partner for life or whatever your thing is, um, you show up, you know, it's still difficult, it's still hard, or whatever, and it's not perfect, but you're you still show up for it. There's just because there's no other option, you know.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Yeah, and I would say the it's very important to work with someone who is able to explain how the daily milestones, the weekly goals that you have, that the how they feed into the how they're going to shape your identity, because it's quite confusing when you start working with someone and they say, Well, they have Hashimotas and they want to come off thyroid medication. Totally doable, by the way. Um, it's it's it's it's just a matter of like what we're gonna do on a day-to-day. But when you tell these people, like, hey, I want you to start getting 15 minutes of light exposure first thing in the morning and to not drink coffee until after your meal one, they're like, I mean, cool, I guess that's like an Instagram hack, but like, how does this actually feed into this? Being able to just say, like, oh, great question, and then break down. This is going to allow you to have buy-in with that person to be able to go through the entire process, which at this point I'm basically teaching people how to coach, um, which I guess it's something that still needs to be done. But uh, I I think that that like makes sense. You need to you need to be able to have these smaller milestones that you can hit so so that you're able to have this identity shaping um effect on on the long-term goals.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

But I think it's important is that you're not constantly holding the the small milestones, allow you to not constantly hold the big um goal in mind at all times. For me, that's extremely overwhelming. Oh, it's so overwhelming. So for me, I think that the identity shift, you have your big goal and you think about it once, say, yeah, like and then you break it down into the small milestones, and as you're doing the milestones, whenever that gets hard, you remember the identity that you are becoming almost.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

So the identity piece, we say you get to experience what that identity feels like when you're doing each one of those things. So if you want to be someone who is better at X, doing Y and Z during the day allows you to basically travel in time and to experience what it's like to live like that person already. So, for instance, for myself, like when right now that I'm dieting, I get to experience hunger. And hunger is part of my future identity, which is just being leaner. If you want to be satisfied at all times, you're just going to be fat forever. So, like being able to break down and understand that, like, oh, the hunger that I'm feeling is actually shaping my identity for the future and preparing me not just for fat loss, but also for growth in the future. I think that's a fantastic way to think about this.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Next question Consistency doesn't just make you better at what you're doing, it makes you better at being consistent. What does that actually mean in real life?

SPEAKER_04 6:56

I love that quote. Such a smart guy who said it. Um what I mean is that consistency is a skill, it's not a personality trait. Every rep that you show up at the gym when you train, you're raising your tolerance for boredom, for discomfort, and for imperfection. When you do these things, you basically stop all negotiation with yourself because your behavior is no longer emotional. Your baseline standards are gonna start rising, not because of your motivation, but because your inconsistency now it's going to feel odd. You're gonna feel weird whenever things are inconsistent, whenever things are out of place. You just feel off. You build that evidence that you are someone who follows through by follow through with the smallest tiny things. People think that they build the evidence of someone who follows through by sticking with their diet for 30 weeks straight. No, you build that consistency by saying, Hey, today I'm gonna wear my blue light glasses before I go to bed, 30 minutes before I go to bed, and you make that happen, right? You were consistent with that action, you're becoming a consistent person. You say, I'm gonna do the dishes before I go to sleep. You're consistent. You do that, you are a consistent person. We have to understand that when we're talking about consistency, we're not talking about fitness only. We're talking about you as a person, your identity as a human being. And you also have to understand that this shift of identity, of consistency from inconsistent to consistent is going to happen very, very quietly. Like you're not going to notice that immediately. Um, but then suddenly you're just gonna notice the shit just feels easier.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, you know? No, I this and a good example of this, it's not fitness related, but I have encountered my brothers who are a little bit messier than me. And I'm like, I used to be so messy, like my room was always a mess, and and I would leave messes around after doing things, and I'm like, but I don't do that anymore. I was like, I wonder when that changed, but I think that I just started like every time I would do something, I would just put it away like after, which was not a natural habit for me, but I just I started doing that every time I would like make something or fix something in the house or whatever. And now it's just I like I have to. I have to put the stuff back in its place. And I feel like that's how if you're logging meals or if you're going to the gym, like on a set, I can't not, I can't not push myself.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

Like I just I can't I can't not log my set. Like I can't not log my set something. No, I have to log my sense. I log it. I log it because it's it's just what I do. I finish my set and I immediately pick up my phone to log.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Like there's no delay there, it's just like something that I'm still working on on the page.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

Yeah, but you have it in other areas too.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Yeah, but like I can't not push myself or try to up my weight, or like that's just built in. It's just feels completely natural. So I do like the um the building evidence for yourself because we have so many conversations in our own heads, and being able to point to specific things and saying, look, here you are consistent, here you are consistent, little things, not big things, like you're saying, um, is really important. And it also allows you to give yourself grace because you're saying, No, I am a consistent person. Maybe I messed up in this area, but I'm going to get back to it. Why? Because I am a consistent person, but dude, a hundred percent connected.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

And and like one thing that I actually mentioned in reels before is is that um like whenever you are experiencing inconsistency, it should feel a little bit odd to you on an identity level from the very beginning of this process. Like, you should be uncomfortable when you like cheat on your diet. You should feel uncomfortable if you're like thinking about skipping the gym and stuff. Those are signs that your identity no longer fits with you being a fucking piece of shit of a slacker. Does that make sense? Right, like like some protocols that I work for people in in like functional medicine and longevity, like cognitive enhancement, things like that. Like, man, like these protocols get intricate, right? Like the person has to remember, well, you're gonna do this for 20 days, you're gonna do this five times a day, you're gonna do this three times a week, this one you have to stop after 20 days, this one you continue for 12 weeks, but the other one is only for 10 weeks. That's like all these types of things. Like, you have to be a disciplined person just to be able to like pull through with the entire process, but every time you do, you become a more consistent individual, and that has the payoff in every single fucking area of your life. It's not just in fitness. Like, this is something that I try to ingrain in people, and I honestly need to do a better job because people assume that by getting leaner, you're just becoming healthier. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. The habits that you build, the the the routine, the structure that you build now serves as a safeguard of your new identity, and that new identity can accomplish so much fucking more than your other one, you know? Yeah, but someone had a question. The next question is what actually breaks consistency for most people? So that's that's actually a good question because consistency is going to break at some point, right? Like this is just part of the process. The Andy Minio says in a song, I'm consistently inconsistent. Yeah, um, which is like that's the human experience, right? Um, identity mismatch uh uh actually happens where your behavior doesn't match your self-image. So that's what I said before. When you have uh a habit, something that you do, like you log every single one of your meals. When you don't log a meal, there's an identity mismatch. That's what an identity mismatch is. Now that can break consistency for people because they can immediately attach themselves to their old identity. Just think about this. Your brain has been learning that your old identity is the safest way to exist for the past 30, 40 years. You think that 20 weeks with a new routine is going to break every every neural pathway that your brain has built to keep you safe in this identity? I call this the the identity preservation, it's a massive problem, not just because it can be intentional, because it can, but also because unintentionally it is a it is a it is a massive problem as well. And intentionally is just more of an annoying thing, like when people are like, Well, I am just the person who does not touch needles. And I'm like, why? Have you ever questioned that in your entire fucking life? Like, have you thought about it whatsoever? Like, why would the mechanism, the mode of delivery, change whether you would benefit from this or not? Like, like, how how is that a thing, right? The the other thing that works um to fantastically to break people's consistency, and this is the thing that I see the most in guys, especially younger guys, like in their 20s, which I work with a few. Um, it's all or nothing mentality. This turns one miss into full-blown fucking collapse. This is when you're like, I'm gonna be perfect with my diet, and you're motivated. That's the fucking danger. Motive, dude. I used to think that motivation was irrelevant. I'm starting to think motivation is actually fucking poison, like it's something that you need to actively avoid. Um, because that motivation dies. Motivation doesn't create identity, and when motivation dies, it directly attacks the new identity that you're creating. So that's a that's a massive problem as well. The next one is using emotion as a decision-making system, and people are can be like, what the fuck does that mean? Okay, picture yourself late at night, you just spent all day in meetings, you have a bunch of responsibility with all of your companies, you get home, you're fucking tired, you like wanted to go out to eat because you don't have the time to cook, but you just cooked something at home, but like you go back to like wash the dishes and stuff, and your mind is just wondering. You had a glass of wine, your mind is just wondering, you just grab something off the cabinet. Like, why did you do that? You did that because you're using emotion as a decision-making system. You didn't do that because of an identity, you did that because you're using the emotion that you're feeling in the moment as your guide, not a plan.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

I have another example. Okay, you're in a like in a group setting or out to eat with people, and you are like, Okay, I need to stick my diet, like I need to get something that's healthier or less fat, or I need to skip the sauce, or I need to not participate in the dessert that everybody's sharing. Yep, but everyone's there, it's an event. Everyone's singing happy birthday, like everybody's having a piece of cake. What am I gonna do? Not have a piece of cake, you know. That's another, I think, example. That is that is very true. And I've I've lived that so much.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

It it well, just it's not social pressure because you're not thinking so much of like, what will people think if I don't eat the cake? You're thinking more of like the cake, I just want to, I just want to fucking do it. Everybody does it, I kind of want to do it, you know. Like that's uh that's very real. The other one, which ties back to the first point that we talked about, is an overattachment to outcomes instead of standards. Again, you're solely focused on the end goal of this person that you become, and you think that you're just gonna flip the card. And when that flipping of the card doesn't happen for one day for one action, you're just like so focused on that final goal that you're like, there's no way I'm gonna be able to climb all the way to the top of this fucking mountain. So that's a massive problem as well. That's why we need those milestones, and that's why I do check-ins daily for a lot of clients. That's why we have uh, you know, biofeedback that's tracked every single week for them, because we need to know exactly how they're doing so that we can correct these things before emotion uh becomes an issue and to prevent people from attaching themselves to the outcomes instead of the standards that we're building, because the standards, the KPIs, the daily milestones is what builds your identity, not the long-term goal. Get off your fucking head that the long-term goal is your new identity. It just that that doesn't exist, that's not your new identity. Your new identity is what you're doing on the day-to-day. This is something that used to like confuse me a lot. Just like, oh, who I am. You are the result of your habits, and your habits are the result of your repeated actions. So, whatever the fuck you do, that's who you are. So you need to do things a lot to be able to become the person who does those things a lot. And the person who does those things a lot is just the person who does that. That does that make sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

I think that that's what I was trying, but I was kind of tying it alluding to alluding to because the big goal, you it is connected to your identity, like we said.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Um, and you do pull your identity from thinking I want to become that person. Yeah, but what builds the identity is the small actions, yes, absolutely. So what defines the identity is the long-term goal.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

What's going to be the constraints for that identity is going to be the long-term goal, you know?

SPEAKER_00 17:49

I see.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

Um the the other issue that I see is people treating discipline like punishment instead of self-respect. So everyone has felt this before. You cheated on your diet, and then you're like, you piece of fucking shit. You're gonna get your steps in today, and you get your steps, and you're so fucking exhausted, and that just ends up you fighting against your own physiology, fighting against your own biology. That is not smart at all. And I severely discourage white knuckling. I actually talk to guys um and and girls on calls, and I usually try to get it out of them whether they are someone who just tries to white knuckles things. Because if they do, if they're open to fixing it, cool. If they're not, I don't want to work with you. Because every time that I offer a solution, you're gonna say, I just need to try harder. You fucking moron. If trying harder was the solution, you would already have a new identity, you dumb fuck. So, like that's that's not what is really happening. What's what's actually happening is that you're just breaking your like your plan momentarily. That's the only fucking thing that happened. 99 actions done right does not erase one action done wrong. How many times does a good person need to do something bad before they become a bad person? Think about that. How many times do you cheat on your diet until you're someone who cheats? If it just happened every now and then, you're not someone who cheats on your diet, you're the motherfucker who gets back as soon as you fail. That's your identity, that's what you need to think about. The last one is no external structure or feedback loop to keep them honest. What does this mean? It means having an actual plan. Now, for all of you guys who are coaching yourselves, uh, which I need to figure out a different term because people don't coach themselves. People really don't coach themselves, they just go with the flow and they just try to figure out like whatever is best according to what they hear from people at the gym and on social media, which is absolutely fucking disrespectful towards yourself. You're a human being, you only get one life, you deserve to get the best outcome for your goals. Okay. Now, if you if you think like, oh, I don't have a structure, that's your structure. Your structure is the lack of structure. When you say, like, I don't have a plan, that's your plan. You have absolutely no fucking clue what you're doing or what you're going to do or anything like that. So that's something that you need to think about. Like these things happen, consistency is gonna break for most people. How fast you bounce your recovery speed, what I call it, like that is what dictates your identity, not the mistake itself. How fast you rebound, that's what happens. You think athletes who are per like performing in the best fucking sports, like at the highest level in the world, you think they don't make mistakes during games? They're making tons of mistakes. The guys who continue to play like shit and get destroyed after they fucked up are the people that don't have a solid identity and they're grounding themselves based on the outcome. They're going into the game thinking I need to win. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The people who are very fucking good, they make a mistake and they're like, Yeah, I made a mistake, but it's okay. Let's just focus on the next one and just I don't have time to think about this shit. So, like, if I if I did something wrong with my business or anything like that, or like something that I I dislike, the quality wasn't good, or anything like that, it's like I can fix that. Do I have time? No, fuck it, move on, roll over, just fucking snowball into the next thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, and I think that that point you made about um discipline, treating discipline like punishment versus self-respect is so powerful if you're able to flip it. So if you're able to treat discipline as a form of self-respect, you're able to think, no, bouncing back into my plan, um, being honest with my coach, putting these feedback loops in place um is a form of self-respect. That is so powerful, and but it's so boring and isn't dramatic. And it's not a story, it's not a big flashy story.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

KPIs are are rarely exciting. Like when yeah the daily actions are rarely exciting.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Like, hey guys, I got my steps today. Like, who cares? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who cares?

SPEAKER_04 21:46

Like, guys, I I walked after my meals today. I'm like, good fucking job. But a few weeks from now, when I have a ridiculous eight pack, people are gonna be like, Oh, what the fuck do you do, man? That's fucking crazy, man. I want that.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Yeah. So our minds, I feel like we crave this drama and we almost will like when we make a mistake, we'll just say, okay, I'm gonna completely fall off the bandwagon, and then to have a big dramatic comeback. Oh no, I'm super motivated now. I'm definitely gonna stick to my plan and all of this stuff. And it's almost like a little bit of a addiction to this weird.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Stick to your motivation, bro. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

And um, yeah, it's not glamorous. The consistency isn't glamorous, but um it is so somebody that is consistent, they almost radiate self-respect and growth. I don't know how else to say it, but like I've met some people that are just so quietly consistent, and then you just look at them and you're like, holy cow, you know, can I just like yeah, yeah, it's very, it's very, it's very hard to like when you when you look at what people are doing on a daily, you're like, Oh, I can do that for a day.

SPEAKER_04 23:01

But it's like this is another another issue that I see, and I could I could have added this here, which is like basically like having a plan that is way too advanced for you. That actually breaks consistency for people. So that's that's why you know, you being a client who are listening to me, that's why when something happens and you feel like you fell off the wagon, you feel like you fucked up and stuff like that. I'm never gonna say yes, you did, but just do better next time. Like that doesn't happen fucking ever. And if I ever did that to you, fucking let me know in the comments because I'll be fucking lying and I don't want to lie to anyone. Um, but it's it's it's like what's the level of that person? So, like when you're coaching someone, you need to measure where that person is relative to their goal, and you need to apply those KPIs to that particular like person right now. You you apply the KPIs to shape the future identity, but to build that future identity, but you do that according to the person's level, right? Like, I I I had uh someone this week who like I'm looking over their training and they're consistently doing like twice a week training, right? They're very busy, travel like flying multiple times a week, and it's just very, very busy. And this person wanted to do more, and I said, You're gonna do more. Cool. But here's the thing, right? We're gonna do more because we need to speed up that loss for your goals. Fucking awesome for your birthday. Um, very cool. But here's what you're gonna do you're going to the gym twice. The I'm gonna add two more days of activity. That's it, that's activity, two more days of walking. That's something that's actionable, it's executable. But what if I told this person, cool, let's just start going to the gym four times a week? Like, man, you doubled their their load. Like you effectively made their life twice as hard. And people who don't have coaches do this all the fucking time. They go to the gym, like, oh, this week I couldn't go, oh, next week I did twice. Oh, this week couldn't go because I was moving, oh, because my boss, uh, because of my dog and my wife, and then like birthdays and all this stuff, and then like this week I went five times, and then they do that two weeks, and it's like, man, my shoulders bother me.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

I'm like, I wonder why.

SPEAKER_04 25:04

Are you fucking dense? Like, are you are you that low IQ that you can't even understand like how much you're stressing your body? And that's like, I probably shouldn't be shitting on people because they don't know better, but they don't know better because they are arrogant, because they assume that they just know how to do this thing, they don't know how to fix a car. Oh, but health? Everyone knows how to fix health, you know, like you're you're fucking moron. But um, to talk about my my my favorite triggering uh topic.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

What is the question?

SPEAKER_00 25:36

I don't know. Oh read it then. How do you stay consistent when motivation is gone?

SPEAKER_04 25:43

Okay. Um, I guess I would say that when motivation is gone, you have an actual opportunity to become consistent. That's that's the first thing. When motivation is gone, you stop asking how you feel. Motivation is relying on feelings, is reliance on emotion. Okay, it is the exact same thing as eating that snack late at night or participating in the party in the way that you didn't anticipate doing. It's the exact same fucking thing. When people tell me that they want to just I just need to more motivate, I just need to be more motivated. What they're telling me is, hey, I used to rely on emotion, and I want to continue relying on this fluctuating and unpredictable thing called an emotion for my thing. Like, no, no, no, no, no. Consistency happens when you stop asking how you're feeling and you start asking who you are. Who you are, what kind of fucking person are you? I asked myself that last night, went to bed fucking hungry, and I'm thinking, I'm fucking hungry, man. I could just fucking eat something. I just want to eat something, like just a little snack. It's never just a little snack, right? But I just want to eat something. But then I thought, like, okay, that's what I want. That's my feeling, that's my emotion. But who am I? Like, when I think about who I am, this person that I'm building, this body that I'm building, no fucking way that guy is gonna just eat whatever. So I don't eat whatever because I dislike being in the environment where my emotions have the control over everything, so I have to act like this fucking guy until I become that guy, like you said it in the last episode. You gotta fade it till you make it, right? And at this point, when motivation goes away, you are able to rely on your standards, not on your energy levels. Does that make sense? You you you reduce friction instead of demanding willpower. Willpower is a finite resource, and again, it's volatile, it's inconsistent, it's just not good for long-term uh performance. Performance, I don't mean like output in terms of like actions, I mean in terms of like the things that you're doing on a day-to-day that are going to bring you closer to that new identity. When cons when motivation is gone, you're gonna start keeping promises that are small enough that skipping them feels worse than doing. So you you put on these goals, man. Like for myself, I wanted to like basically reduce my THC consumption, right? And my idea was like just fucking eliminate it altogether. Okay, but THC is a tool, it's a tool, it's great for appetite and it's great for sleep. Right now, I'm in a highly sympathetic environment where sleep is not very good because of the stimulants for fat loss. Hunger is also not super high at all times because of the high quantity of fiber, uh, like low calorie dense foods and things like that. So, like it has a place. But what if I just said like stop using weed forever? That's what people do. Like, people are like, Oh, I'm gonna quit alcohol, I'm gonna quit sugar, I'm gonna quit sodas, I'm gonna quit nicotine. Why don't you first analyze what is it that you're doing, get the benefits, and then try to use that for your own purpose, right? Like I could say, I'm not going to eat out anymore, period. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Why don't you start by eating out, but eat the lowest calorie option on the menu, right? Like we went out, fit my macros, instead of getting like a tray with corn, corn dog, and hush puppies and a milkshake. I got three burgers with no cheese and no bacon. Were they good? Oh fucking yeah, they were good. They were better than if I were eating nothing, if I was eating nothing or eating rice and chicken at home. Yeah, so like I'm already gaining something, I'm already like in this in the surplus here, I'm already profiting, right? Like, understand that you have to make these these um promises very, very small for you to be able to. You you if you're if the promise that you're making to yourself feels large, feels very difficult, you're gonna fail. You're gonna fucking fail. This is not even how we treat recovery for people with addictions. We add very, very, very small goals. You your goals have to feel so actionable that if you feel like if you didn't do them, you would be disrespecting yourself, you'd be sinning against your own body, to quote Paul, right? Like that's that's the idea. When motivation is gone, you show up because that's just what the fuck you do. You show up, you're a person who shows up. It's not because you feel like it. So, motivation, get it off your fucking vocabulary. If I hear one person talking about how they just need to be more motivated one more time, I'm gonna absolutely fucking lose all of my trend rage on them. Um, just going to impart on them all of the anecdotes that people talk about on the internet about trend and stuff. Uh, by the way, trend doesn't make me angry, it makes me very driven, very goal-oriented, task-oriented. So it's like I need to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. I need to complete task C and D as efficiently as possible and things like that, but it doesn't make me angry, like in the way that it makes most people.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah, that's a footnote about trend, but yeah, I I sorry, I gotta capture my train of thought. I just started thinking about trend.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

Um you need to start taking trend.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

I need that would not be good, I don't think. Um sorry.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

That's okay. Do you want to just go to the next question? I mean, can we go back to it if you want?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Yeah, that'll be good.

SPEAKER_04 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Sorry, guys. Um, if you take a break from training, how do you handle the restart process?

SPEAKER_04 31:24

Ah, another word that I dislike thoroughly. Restart. Getting back on track, fell off the wagon. I hate these terms with a passion. You don't restart at your peak identity, you restart at your current capacity.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Can you repeat?

SPEAKER_04 31:42

I'm gonna say that again. You don't restart at your peak identity, you restart at your current capacity. If you've been dieting very consistently and doing everything right for 16 weeks, but you fucked up badly, you're not going to restart at this level, you're not going to restart with this program, you're not gonna restart with these KPIs. We need to adjust that so that it matches your current capacity. Does that make sense? Yeah. By doing this, you remove your ego from the equation immediately, immediately, because it's not like, oh, I'm just gonna get back, like oh, oh, I I I couldn't train for like a week, but now like I used to do like fucking two-hour sessions, so I'm just gonna go back to two hour sessions and stuff. It's like, no, no, no, no, that's just your ego talking because you don't want to feel you want it to you piece of shit. You want it to take a break and not have to deal with the fact that you took a break. You just want to give back as if that didn't happen. You can't eat your cake and then have it sitting in the fridge if you fucking ate it. Which, by the way, that's the way the saying should be. It should be you can't you can't eat your cake and have it, okay? You can have your cake and eat it because you bought it and you fucking have it, but you can't eat it and then have it unless you throw it up. God damn it. I apparently that's the way it's like B.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

Apparently, that's the way the saying used to be. I'm also I've been fucking working, I've made over 40 pieces of content today. I'm just fucking on a roll, man. Um, anyways, cake. You're going to rebuild rhythm before you rebuild your uh intensity. Okay, so like when you go back to the gym, we're not going to go back at like zero R AR. We're going to go back with a few reps from failure, maybe a few less sets. Maybe we're not going to do cardio afterwards, or cardio is going to be reduced. But that's what we're going to do. We need to rebuild your rhythm before we build that intensity. Remember, like what I said before about people's level. We need to create a plan for your current level today. That's why I keep communication open for all clients every single day. To send me a message, 20 minutes, the answer is back. Why? Because we need to have that close support so that if something changes, we can adapt very quickly for your current capacity, not just what's on paper. Because otherwise, you're going to spend a whole fucking week just trying to hop back on a plan that was built for who you were, like where you were at two weeks ago. That's not where you're at anymore. You have to treat the restart as data, and this is important, not a judgment. Um, this is important because people don't look at their setbacks as data, they look at their setbacks as an identity, as a moral or an ethics problem. It's not your your your setback, so to speak, is just an indication that something broke, and your job is to figure out why. Why did it break, under what conditions? What can you change in that context to make sure that that outcome doesn't replicate itself without you realizing if you don't conduct this analysis? That's when people keep doing the same mistake over and over and over and over and over. That's another reason why having a coach on your corner is very useful because when you're just stuck in your own fucking head, you can't access these things on your own. It's much easier for me to just sit back and just be like, okay, like I know everything you want to do. I know how much you want me to understand where you're coming from and all this shit. I care about the results and what's best for you for us to build that new identity and get you the results you want is for me to not give a shit about understanding you right now. It's just about you're gonna do less, right? Like, it's like what we did with you. I hate hearing that it's hard, it's very, very hard, it's very hard and hard. But what do you want? Do you want someone that's just gonna understand you? Get a fucking therapist. Do you want to get results? Get a coach.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

And I think that um treating it as data ties back into something I was thinking from the previous question about reducing friction. So I feel like when you treat your setback or whatever you're you know, when you fall off the wagon, yeah um as a judgment, like okay, you have to restart and you're treating it as a judgment, you the response is willpower. Yes. But if the uh if you're treating the set the restart or the setback as data, then the response is going to be something like reducing friction. And I mean things that ways. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

And so I couldn't completely increase friction if you try to maintain the same identity, and if you restart at your peak identity, you try to do that at your peak identity.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yeah. So like when I couldn't finish my workouts, because I just could never ever finish them, you reduced friction by uh well, you reduced uh the amount of days that I was working out, but and the sets and the duration, yeah. You reduced friction by simplifying. So instead of me having like part A, and then I'm having two exercises that I'm bouncing back and forth on, yeah, one set of this, one set of this, one said, and that was a little bit stressful. You reduce the friction by just simplifying. Nope, you're just doing biceps, and you're just doing triceps, you're just doing that, and so it's simple things like that.

SPEAKER_04 36:52

Wait, look at your biceps, bro. Where are your biceps looking? Like, look at that. Look at that, bro. That's insane. That's fucking crazy. Your arms just grow without you doing anything. I know, you're not even training.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

What a sets like two sets a week.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

It is two sets a week. It is two sets a week.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

It's four sets.

SPEAKER_04 37:11

Yeah, four sets a week right now because you're pushing, but for the majority of time, we actually keep it at zero. Um, but but like you you have to anchor your habits first, and then you scale the demand. So first you go back to your grounding, to the things that are gonna keep you safe. Whenever you feel safe, your system feels safe. And this software that you're running in your system is going to tell your body that, like, yo, it's okay, we're gonna we're gonna get back on track, but we're gonna do it at your time. Doesn't that sound good? Doesn't it sound like reassuring when you just like come to someone that you love and you're like, I fucked up. You remember when you used to like tell your parents was like, I just did something really bad, and it was like I fucking stole uh like a piece of candy for my best friend, uh, like something like that. And your parents are like that's you know, that's not good, but that's okay, you know, it it happens, it's just you know, and and they and they they come with this like voice that sort of like soothes you that soothes your brain. When your brain feels safe, your whole metabolism feels safe, your whole body feels safe. Your your mitochondria actually does respond to these signals of safety, and it sort of like responds in a way that like when you your your mitochondria feels safe, your metabolism just fucking runs like crazy. When it doesn't, it stalls. Why? Because your body is protecting yourself from the danger that it's perceiving. So you have to tell your body, no, it's not danger, we're just we're getting back to what we're doing, we're just doing the same thing, but we're gonna do a little bit lower because I know you're a little bit sketched out right now, body. So we're just gonna like tone it down a little bit and just do it slow.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

So if you're trying to have this type of talk to yourself, but then you have discomfort, and we've been talking about like leaning into the discomfort, how do you balance that? Those voices of like, okay, danger or discomfort is not the same as danger.

SPEAKER_04 39:03

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Aren't they perceived similarly?

SPEAKER_04 39:06

Yeah, they are just like people perceive dopamine and addiction as the same thing, and just like people perceive uh fucking like adrenaline as like focus, but these things are they're they're you're just perceiving them in the same way, but they're not the same thing at all.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:22

Um, the the the last thing that I would say here is that your goal is not redemption, and I hate redemption arcs. I hate when guy when guys come at me telling me like, man, now everything is gonna be man, this week is gonna be fucking great and everything. I I want to flick your dick. Like, I just want to make you feel pain because it's idiotic. Like you don't have a red, it's not that deep, bro. It's just a data point, it's just a fucking data point. If your computer keeps fucking sending you a message that, like, hey, your storage is full, hey, your storage is full, hey, your storage is full, hey, your storage is full, and then you keep ignoring that. At one point, you're not gonna be able to use your computer anymore, you're not gonna be able to use it. So, when that happens, what are you gonna have to do? Oh, are you gonna just do something real quick and it's gonna your computer is gonna go back to behaving the way that it was in the beginning when you bought it? No, you're gonna have to take time, you're gonna have to reorganize things, and you're gonna have to have to do that in a way that fits your lifestyle where you are currently. That computer analogy is really fucking good. The goal is to rebuild momentum. It's easier to turn a ship that's actually in movement. Like moving a ship that's not in movement is so fucking hard. Moving a car that's already in movement, it's it's so much easier. So the goal here is for us to actually create momentum. Good question.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

So, how do you know when discipline turns into self-punishment?

SPEAKER_04 40:41

Um, very, very individual question, but here are a couple of things. When when consistency is driven by fear instead of values, you're going to be turning into punishment.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 40:53

So when you're when your consistency is driven by like, I don't want to lose my six pack, it's punishment. I don't want to get too fat, it's punishment. Oh, like I'm I'm trying to like get lean, but I want to get like really lean, it's punishment. You're just trying to avoid the fact that you're not comfortable in your own fucking skin. And that's not going to have a good outcome for your identity, which you're going to need if you're going to be the person that you said you wanted to be. When rest feels like failure instead of a strategy, you're experiencing that right now, which is like we haven't seen blood work, but I'm pretty sure we're dream dealing with like stage two, stage three of adrenal insufficiency for you.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

For me, yes.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

Oh, so what this what this means is that we just need to severely reduce your allostatic load. Allostatic, it's by the way, it's allostatic, not allosteric. I don't know where people got the word allosteric from. It comes from the Greek allostasis, it doesn't come from any allosteric. That doesn't exist fucking American, English speakers, goddamn it. Um, in any case, your rest is like the that you're doing right now, it's for the purpose of us being able to push. You're not going to put on muscle unless you rest, you're not going to lose fat unless you rest. You're not going to continue being insulin sensitive and having good digestion if you don't rest. Your sleep is going to continue deteriorating unless you rest. So while it feels like, oh, going to the gym less, spending less time training is like less stuff, less, less days at the gym, less cardio, like more whole foods, higher amounts of fats, lower carbs, like calorie cycling, all these things. It just might feel like not really doing anything. You do add another supplement, and it's like, I guess, but you can't compare like how you're feeling to 30 minutes ago because you didn't just take fucking Adderall. Like Adderall is just brute forcing your system into productivity. That's all that it's doing. It doesn't care how you're feeling. What we're doing is rebuilding the system so that we don't have to like brute force and fucking bully our bodies to be able to do the things that we need to do. And people do this all the time, and it's it's very common for overachievers, but like not everyone around is giving 150% at their job and shit. So, like, why are you who are you Jesus just trying to save the world? You know, just like trying to save your company, trying to save your boss and all these types of trying to save your relationship and everything. It's like you just have to recognize that certain things are completely outside of your control.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Yeah, the whole control, there's an exercise you can do where you draw the circle, and then you have a situation and you write the things that are when you can another circle, yeah, circle inside, and then you write the things that are in your control, and then all the other things within the circle are the things that are not in your control.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Um, and it's a really good mental exercise to help kind of pull you out of that mindset. Yeah um, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:44

Another another way that discipline turns into self punishment is when you like miss a session and that triggers shame instead of triggering an adjustment. Now, see, that's again data driven, which is what we do at Off to Lab. That's an adjustment. If you're consistently missing sessions, you can't actively go. To the gym four times a week if you can if you've only been going three times. Like, I don't I don't want you to just fucking try harder. You have to try hard for so many things in life, you don't have to for this. Like, we can actually just adjust. Like, people make fucking great goals. Like, there are professional bodybuilders going to the gym three times a week, man. Like, people don't realize this. They're there this this happens. Like, you don't need to go to the gym five times a week. Why do I go? Because it's more gains, and I fucking like it. But there gets to a point that I don't like it anymore. Like right now, I'm on week 21 of my push phase, 22, something like that. Kind of fucking tired. Um, so like I go to the gym and I'm sometimes I'm dreading it and stuff like that, which just means next phase, I'm gonna go to the gym three times a week. I'm not gonna be going five. I'm gonna be lowering to three times a week. That's an adjustment, that's not like feelings of shame. I'm not like, man, I used to be so motivated, I don't know what the fuck is happening with me and stuff. That you know, that happens to people that who don't know what the fuck is happening to them, you're just spiraling like out of control. But when you do know what the fuck is happening, then it's like, oh yeah, it's just my body doing its thing, so I'm just gonna do my thing in response so that we are cooperating because we're a fucking team.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Which all of this work, like all of this mentality that we're talking about, it you can't do this for every area of your life by yourself. That's another thing of brute force. You can't brute force yourself into like perfect balance, discipline, identity, goals, definition, and coming up with all your KPIs and everything for every area of your life. Like, just think about that your work, your relationships, your training, all of this stuff. So you've got to outsource some of that to somebody, or it's just not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

So, like for me, I outsource it to my coach and I'm still participating and I'm still, you know, coming up with the goal or helping come up with the goal, and I am trying to shape my identity around that and all of these things, but I have somebody to kind of help carry that, carry the mental load of that to where I know that on Sundays I'm not thinking in these very like meta terms. I'm literally just I need to I need to take my temperature in the morning. Boop, took it right down. I don't even think, why am I taking my temperature? What does my temperature mean? Yeah, how is it?

SPEAKER_04 46:18

It's so nice to be able to do that. Like, that's that's like I've been craving that, and I'm gonna start working with someone very soon. Yeah, because I'm just like, I just want you to take all of the like decision making out of the equation for me. Another another way that uh discipline turns into self-punishment is when you start having discipline to prove your worth rather than trying to support your life. Highly problematic, highly problematic. You're not going to prove your worth by being more disciplined because that's going to rely on motivation, that's a that's an emotion, and you're driven by your ego. You can't be driven by your ego. Everyone who's driven by their ego ends up injured or they quit. It's just the way that it happens. In a burnout, they have to like stop. So don't do that. When when you start like ignoring progress and you start only highlighting your flaws, the things that didn't go right, this is the biggest like issue for myself because I'm so like interested in correcting things. I look at my own data and I'm like, okay, diet wasn't good. Let's just like fix the diet. Oh, supplementation a little bit fell off towards the end of the week, so let's just fix that. Cool. That's my check-in for the week. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, hold up, wait a minute. You did so many things right. Yeah, can we just stop for a second and appreciate that? And by the way, I've talked about this in reels before, but your brain does not remember your entire day. Your brain is only able to keep emotions for about 90 seconds. So it's important that you your your brain only remembers certain key points during the day, certain like high emotions, and it just remembers the feeling of those things, and it remembers the like the last moments, whatever you're thinking before, which is why one of the reasons this is like we tell people when they're studying, it's like, hey, review your notes from the class of today before you go to bed. Like, do that because that's the thing that's gonna help your brain remember the most. Journaling. I have fucking journal, two journals there and two journals here, and I have two journals in my bedroom. Like, I'm writing all the fucking time. Write down the shit that you did write. Start getting in the habit of recognizing yourself for what you did, not just for what you didn't throughout the day. Do that late, like before you go to sleep, implement that into your night routine. Man, journaling is absolutely fucking amazing. It definitely works, and it's one of those things I thought was bullshit, uh, but it definitely isn't. And we're gonna have an episode on that because uh I just uh I did red light therapy today because it's fucking great, and red light therapy used to be a thing that I used to be very, very vocal about being absolute fucking bullshit. Turns out it's real, even the fucking skin shit that people that girls do for their face and shit like that. I'm like unfortunately is true, so I just have to admit it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Yeah, and this is just this is normal, like this is who you want to be just saying, someone that's like prove me wrong, yeah, yeah, and then and it's tell people part of the routine for working with you, and it's always been like uh part of my life, like in general, it's just who I am.

SPEAKER_04 49:15

I'm always willing to be proven wrong. People don't understand that because they think that I'm just like, oh, you're just like rage baiting, or you're just like fucking like engagement farming and all this type of shit. I'm like, brother, prove me wrong, and I will gladly change my mind. You know how I how I like change my mind with uh in terms of like bulking? I just fucking understood the argument. That's it, but I'm not gonna go there because you know it's yeah, I'm gonna plant though. I don't even care about this whole thing and like bodybuilding and shit like that for like your bulking and your calories and stuff like that. I think it's very irrelevant, and I think your your body needs to be charged, not just fed. And I think that's a big misunderstanding when people just start focusing on calories, which I call calorie absolutism, and I absolutely fucking hate it. I just wrote an essay on that that's gonna be going on Instagram, true, soon. Well, by soon I mean like two months from now. Um, because I have a schedule. Um when when like the last thing that I'm gonna say is just that real discipline is going to build stability, not self-hatred. If it's building self-hatred, if it's building this, you are in self-punishment, you're not in discipline. Okay, that's just what I'm gonna end up with. But good. Next question.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

How does identity change once sorry? Let me start over. How does identity change once fitness is no longer something you do, but something you are?

SPEAKER_04 50:33

Someone you are, someone you are, not something you are. You're not something, you're someone.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

How does identity change once?

SPEAKER_04 50:41

I'm just kidding. It's just uh I'm just being pedantic with the person who wrote the question, not with you reading, man. If I just keep like saying that, you're just gonna keep rereading that thing over and over and over and over. Man, I need to read. I need it, I need to train train rage baiting with you. I just need at home. I did that yesterday, right? Oh my god. What did I what did I say? Did I say shut the fuck up, bitch? Or like what no, I that's not what I said. What did I say?

SPEAKER_00 51:05

You said something along those lines.

SPEAKER_04 51:07

And you were like, What?

SPEAKER_00 51:11

It's like those pranks where the kid, like yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was like, um, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 51:17

So, how does your identity change one's fits? This is not something you do, but it's someone you are. Very good. When when when this happens, your decisions become automatic, they're not debated, they're not up for debate, they're just automatic. It's just what you do. That's why I log all of my food the day before. So I just wake up and I'm fucking, I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't need to negotiate with my hunger city, I don't need to think, what am I feeling? Because that's what I do when I fucking binge eat. So why would I recreate that pattern in my own plan, right? Like that's that doesn't fucking make any sense. Exactly, right? Like, you also are gonna stop outsourcing your responsibility to plans, to hacks, or to motivation is just part of your identity. Your environment is going to change to match your new standards, the people around you, the way your shit is organized around your house. Like, if you if like on my desk, I have caffeine, I have activated charcoal, methylene blue, new pept, nicotine, nephoracetam, some SD cards, bunch of fucking water. Why? Because that's my identity, that's what I do. But if I was a guy who was just fucking like playing video games and just doing shit, what the fuck do you think would be on my desk? Right? So, like you can look at your environment and just like use that as a proxy for how you're doing, but also like who you are. You just have all of your shit like organized, like your gym stuff is always organized, it's already inside of your car, maybe, like it's already like in the front door. Like you're you're fucking ready. You're not gonna wait for motivation. You're there's no willpower here in this equation.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

And I would say that I think I can tell by the way you were moving your head that you were gonna bite me. Is that part of Trent? No, it's not, it's he's always bitten me. Um I think that outsourcing things to plans, hacks, and hacks, I almost I kind of like hacks because I I actually implement them. So if you implement, I don't know if you would call them hacks, strategies, but if you have these ideas of, oh, I always forget to take my medication, I should put it in four different places around my house. So hack, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:21

That's a confrontation strategy.

SPEAKER_00 53:23

There you go. A confrontation strategy, then um, yeah, I guess then my definitions are completely different than what you're talking about. But so the confrontation strategies um are how you take responsibility for um your fitness journey. Um, and it's not a hack. It's not something that actually is uh there's something like to find in the system. If you just find this one little thing, then it's gonna make everything easier.

SPEAKER_04 53:52

What you're doing with your bills is habit stacking. Like you're you're not just doing like, I wonder what's like a quick little thing that I can learn without putting on any effort that it will just fix this problem for me without having me to put any thought into it. Like that's a hack. The hack is something you saved from Instagram that you saw that's very cool that people did with like nothing like yesterday. I saw someone who got a piece of fucking uh uh a napkin and they put it on the tray in front of them in the airplane, and then they took their phone off the case, put it behind the napkin, and put their phone back in the case, and then they had their phone just being able to watch. That's a hack. That's not a strategy, that's just like a little something, but it doesn't change your identity. Uh uh structure actually allows you to recreate your identity. Um you're gonna feel off when you don't train, but you're not gonna feel guilty. That's a difference because you understand that we go through phases and we're not going to be like going full boar at all times. Nothing can, no machine can. I hate when people say, like, you're not a machine, you need a break. Machines need a break too, they need maintenance. Man, I just did such a good job at not cussing at people right now. Um, but it really bothers me when people are like, Oh, you just need like like just like just like a machine. You're not like a machine. You're of course you're not a machine, you're a human being, and you need just as much maintenance as a machine does. Um the question shifts from should I to how do I? Like instead of like, should I do this thing? It's like, no, no, no, how do I do this thing? Because that's my identity. So, like, for me, it's not a matter of like, oh, like how how will I become like bigger? That's the question. It's not like man, wouldn't it be nice if I could become bigger? That's what people think. People think, like, man, it would be nice if I had a six pack, man, it would be nice if I didn't have PCOH, man, it would be nice if I didn't have Graves disease, man, life would be great if I didn't have Hashimoto's. Fucking change that.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

Yeah, no, fix it. I think that that's that's a big thing, and I think another thing is um that fitness would become can become self-expression and not just self-control. So it's not just this limiting thing, but instead your it it's a way, a lens through or um, I don't know if a lens is the right word, but it's a way that you show up to society. It's a way that you show up to social environments or to anywhere that you can express yourself, it's a part of that and it's involved in that.

SPEAKER_04 56:25

Now, when I when I what I finished with uh is very intentional, which is like if you have these things going on, you need to fix them.

SPEAKER_00 56:33

So just go back and listen to that because it ties to this question, which is why do so many people fail when they try to coach themselves?

SPEAKER_04 56:42

I fucking love this question. Thank you for asking. You cannot objectively assess your own blind spots, you are stuck in your own head, you are seeing the world through your lenses, and you are caught by your own biases, you are trapped by them. You cannot avoid this. We have learned this with postmodernity, which by the way is not a philosophy thing, it started with an art. Um, but we've learned this that there is no neutrality. You're always accessing things from your point of view. So if you are the person who needs to objectively assess your own blind spots, how are you gonna do that if you only have a subjective standpoint? You can't. That's why people fail. People also fail because their emotions are going to be distorted under stress. Decision making under stress just goes to shit. And people build their plans, they build their whole lives and structures based on their best performing days. Here at Opt Lab, we do it differently, and I'm gonna tell you the secret. We built your plans based on your worst days, not your best days. You can always fucking do it. That's just free for y'all. Apply this in your life, and you're gonna see how much progress you're gonna make. Next is you you actually rationalize your behaviors, and these are some behaviors you would never allow in a client. You're like saying, like, oh, I guess it's okay if I just swap my meals today. If a client asks me, depending on what their goals are, I'm gonna say, No. Who said that was a good idea? Are you out of your mind? No, like that's not a thing. Oh, but I really want it as my girlfriend's dad's birthday. I'm like, it's not your birthday. Fucking eat your food. Oh, but I don't want to bring my own tapoar food. Eat it before you go and drink a Diet Coke while you're there. Oh, but I want to eat something, then bring your fucking food. Uh, but I don't want to bring my food, bro. Stop it. Stop, stop. Like, just fucking stop. You need someone to be able to tell you this. I've I've had a client before, no longer working with me, obviously, who like said, like, once once I basically said these things to him, so like, oh, I'm not signing up to like losing my freedom. And I'm like, No, you kind of are, because your freedom brought you here. You don't need more freedom, you need fucking structure. There's also no external accountability and self-coaching. External accountability, not just accountability, interrupts self-deception. Whenever you get in these loops and these patterns of like like you're negotiating with yourself, you start twisting reality. People think that their like thinking is static. It's not, it's always constantly changing. Why? For the goal of preservation and comfort. That's what your brain is seeking. Your brain is not trying to thrive. Your cells are not trying to thrive, they're just trying to survive. And the best way to survive is to keep you safe, to keep you in a parasympathetic tone so that you live longer and just be comfortable forever. Your brain doesn't give a shit about your goals, and you need to have that external accountability to be able to interrupt these cycles of self-deception because you're fucking going through them and you know them. Also, identity protection is a real thing and it overrides any honest self-assessment. Identity protection is what I meant before when I was talking about needles. It's just like, no, I'm just the person who does that. Like, no, no, no. We're gonna change your identity. Make no mistake, if you come to Optolab, we're gonna change who you are. You don't come to OFTALab to be the same fucking person. You come to Oftolab to be a completely different person, and that's what we get you to become. But if you're just working with yourself, you're not even working with yourself, if you're just doing your own thing, how the fuck are you gonna deal with identity preservation? Honestly, how are you gonna deal with that? How are you gonna deal with the fact that you have no external accountability to interrupt your self-deception? How are you gonna deal with the fact that you rationalize behaviors that you would never allow a client? How do you deal with the fact that your emotions are going to distort decision making under stress? How do you deal with the fact that you cannot objectively assess your own blind spots? How do you deal with the fact that identity protection overrides all of that self-assessment and most people confuse information with implementation? How are you gonna deal with that? You have no fucking plan. That's why people fail because they don't know how to deal with all of these things. And let me tell you, the majority of people who self-coach who even are like, oh, I'm gonna put myself on a bodybuilding stage and stuff like that, they still don't know how to deal with these things. And they usually crash and burn, and they also almost always have at least a second set of eyes looking over their plan. It's never completely alone, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. I just I talked about this today on Instagram, but like we we have a doctor now at OptiLab because like I want to run my protocols through an actual qualified fucking person, like looking into this, someone who's not just tied to Western medicine, but it's also into functional health. Like, that is the exact type of person that I want in my corner. I'm not that guy yet, I don't have that much knowledge. So, what do I do? I hire that guy so that my clients get the best outcome. How are you gonna do that for yourself? You can't, you can't. That's why self-coaching is mostly fucking stupid, and I don't even like to call it self-coaching. I just I think it's just people are just winging it, they are literally just winging it, they have no idea about any of the processes that are happening in their bodies or how to deal with them.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Yeah. Next question: What actually makes change sustainable long-term?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:50

Identity-based standards instead of outcome chasing. That's what's going to change it the most. You you need a system that works on bad weeks, not on perfect weeks, which is what I mentioned before, which is how I build plans for people. You also need emotional neutrality around your setbacks. You you can't be the person who reacts emotionally. If you react emotionally to your setbacks, you are not fit for self-coaching. Get that in your head. You're also going to have consistent feedback loops and course correction. You're able to adapt, you're able to change, you're always evolving, you're never just staying the same. For consistency to be sustainable long term, for this whole process to be sustainable long term, and this change to be sustainable long term, you have to respect recovery. You have to respect your seasons that you're in in your life. There's a time for everything, Ecclesiastes 3. And you have to respect your current capacity. Where are you at right now? Not where you were at your best. Guys are always fucking tying their motivation to the feeling that they had when they were at their best. So the feeling is familiar, and that's why they tie that change to that. It's gonna fucking fail. It fails every time. And when it fails, just let me know. The belief needs to be this is who I am now. This is not a phase. This is not a phase. People can mock you and talk shit about you, which by the way, if people around you are making fun about you for getting your health back in order, get rid of those people. You don't fucking need those people. If they're your family, okay, you don't need to get rid of them. But create some fucking boundaries, bro. You're doing something that's good for you, and the only reason they're making fun of you, it's because they lack an identity that can actually withstand the confrontation of their own habits. The fact that they are seeing someone do the shit that they said that they were gonna do, but they can never fucking pull through. That's extremely humiliating for people. That's why they make fun of you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Wow, that's powerful.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:48

Yep. Um, let's go for some. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Oh, I was just thinking on uh the consistent feedback loops needing and having starting over um for the consistent feedback loops idea. Um, that is what you need for change because change isn't a single event. I think that you have to change the way you think about change. Um, and that's why the feedback loops are so important, um, because it's over time and it's it's forcing this analysis, and you're doing this in like little loops over and over and over and over and over and over again. And you have that, that is the way you change. You know, it's never just a one thing, nobody ever changes in one action, ever. Uh changes, it's evolving.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:37

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, good question, guys. Let's go for some rapid fire from Instagram questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

All right. How do I stay consistent when life gets busy?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:47

Uh, you need to lower the bar of execution without lowering the standard of identity. So showing up still reinforces who you are, even when your capacity is limited.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

What if I keep falling off?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:01

Falling off isn't the problem. Um, when you break trust with yourself by quitting the return, that is the problem.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:10

How long does it take before consistency feels natural?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:14

So consistency is gonna feel natural once your behavior stops being a decision. Once it starts being a default response to stress, that's when consistency is gonna start feeling natural.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

Is missing a week a big deal?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:28

Well, missing a week matters if you let it turn into your whole fucking story about who you are instead of just a data point about your life, then it's a big fucking deal. So I would say it's a big deal for most people because they don't listen to this podcast or they have no idea how to deal with this.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

How do I stop restarting over and over?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:45

You need to stop treating restarts like redemption arcs and you start treating them like normal course correction.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

How do I need perfect? Sorry, do I need perfect structure to be consistent?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:58

No, you need resilience. Structure, not perfect structure. Perfection collapses the moment life applies some pressure. So you need to have resilience, adaptability under stress.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:11

How do I rebuild momentum after a bad month?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

You do that by returning to the smallest version of the habits that restore your rhythm without triggering shame.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:23

Why do I sabotage myself when things are going well?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:28

Because your nervous system like feels this. Your success is threatening to your old identity. And your system is actually trying to pull you back to what is familiar to you. That's why this happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:45

What advice would you give someone who keeps starting over?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:48

Stop starting over. Start continuing imperfectly. That's what you need to do. Your identity is built through continuity, not through clean slates. Every motherfucker who says that they need to just like, oh, I'm just gonna start off, I'm just gonna get back on track is like, nope, you don't understand that consistency is continuing imperfectly. That's what consistency is, is imperfect continuation.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

I have a quick thought about this.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Um, just think about your your plan as a relationship. So, like if you're dating a guy or a girl, and every time that something goes wrong, you break up with them and you go find someone else. Yeah, and then when that something goes wrong there, then you break up with them, you find someone else. Just think how many people you've gone through if that was your mentality, yeah, versus nope, I'm gonna stick with one person and then over time we're just gonna keep going, it's imperfect, whatever, but then it's gonna get better over time. That's how I think I've seen it before. Yeah, what's something about consistent people? What's something about consistency people misunderstand?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:50

Okay. Well, most people think consistency is about intensity and they think it's about discipline. And when in reality, it's really about emotional regulation and stability of your identity. And there's a last question here that that that I was asked that I feel like it's very, very important. So I wrote down an answer here and I'm gonna read it to you guys. Can you read that question, please?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:09

Who are you now that you weren't when you started? And what would that version of you say to someone just beginning?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:17

Here's what I wrote because I thought very deeply about this. I said, I'm someone who no longer needs motivation to act and no longer confuses intensity with progress. And if that version of me could speak to someone just starting, he would say, This isn't about proving anything or fixing yourself. It's about becoming the kind of person who knows how to show up through chaos, boredom, setbacks, and success. And if you're trying to do that alone and you keep looping, it's not because you're broken, it's because identity change is very hard to see from the inside. And sometimes you need someone outside of the loop to help you hold the standard until that becomes who you are. Guys, this was a fantastic episode, packed to the brim with fucking value. And I just wanted to extend this conversation to you. If you're someone who's struggling with this, send me a message. Let's fucking talk about it. I'm not trying to sell you anything, just trying to get you to understand where your issue is coming from so that we can fix it. Usually we can fix it with just a few messages. I've literally had someone talking about this with me uh last week, and we fix that shit with three messages. Okay, so talk to me. Let's maintain a conversation here and change your fucking identity by having a long term goal that is actionable daily.